The Portland landlord who was acquitted of manslaughter in the case of Maine’s deadliest house fire in decades has appealed his single misdemeanor conviction to the state’s highest court.
More than two years after a fire in his Noyes Street duplex killed six people, Gregory Nisbet is seeking to overturn his conviction for failing to keep the property in compliance with fire safety code. He filed an appeal to the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine on July 7, according to court documents.
Last October, a Cumberland County Superior Court judge found Nisbet not guilty of six counts of manslaughter and a slew of misdemeanors related to the 2014 blaze and convicted him of a code violation.
In December, Justice Thomas Warren sentenced Nisbet to serve 90 days in jail and pay a $1,000 fine for the code violation related to the size of the windows in his building’s third floor, where three people were found dead following the fire. But Warren stayed the sentence as the landlord’s legal team first sought a new trial and then, when that failed, began the appeal process.
There is no date set for Nisbet’s appeal, and it is unlikely to begin for months.
The landlord’s acquittals were a disappointment for state prosecutors and a bitter pill for family members of the deceased, who nonetheless said that the criminal prosecution — unusual in landlord-tenant cases — has improved protections for renters and fire safety throughout Maine.
A year after the fire, the Portland City Council voted unanimously to create the Housing Safety Office. The new office keeps a registry of rental properties and employs four full-time housing inspectors to enforce code.
During Nisbet’s trial, it was revealed that a city building inspector had received complaints about an illegal dwelling on the third floor of his Noyes Street property but never entered the home to investigate.
The people killed in the fire were David Bragdon Jr., 27; Ashley Thomas, 29; and Nicole Finlay, 26, who lived at 20 Noyes St., and visitors Steven Summers, 29, of Rockland; Maelisha Jackson, 23, of Topsham and Chris Conlee, 25, of Portland.